The Best Free and Cheap Video Creation Resources

On this page you’ll discover tons and tons of free (and some cheap) resources to make better videos less expensively. There’s all sorts of free stock media resources, free pictures, images, clipart, sound and music, high-quality free video editors and a lot more.

I’m the moderator at the Warrior Forum’s High Voltage Video Forum, and this collection literally took me years to assemble. It’s all of the very best free and low cost video creation resources I’ve found online and will be a great asset to all video marketers.

Important Note: Terms change and are often a matter of interpretation. It’s up to you to double check the license, terms and End User Agreements for any and all of the following resources before using them in your video projects.

When Working With Media to Use in Videos You Must Be Flexible

Before we get started with a vast assortment of free (and some cheap) video resources, one essential skill for video creation is the ability to convert media from one format to another. Sketch programs such as VideoMakerFX may require that images are in the .svg format in order for the program to “sketch” them. Some video programs may output in .mov or .avi, while another may only work with .mp4 videos.

Being able to convert image and video files from one file type to another creates many more opportunities for video creation. There’s nothing worse than finding that perfect background video, only to find it’s in a format that your video making program won’t accept.

Video Converters

Any Video Converter – FREE – I’ve tried and tested 7 or 8 video converters and I use an older version of Any Video Converter to convert videos to convert videos from one format to another. It’s a great program.

However, the newest version may have additional “Ad Ware”. Make sure to pay attention when you install it and deselect any additional installations you don’t want to install.

Here’s a video I made showing how to convert videos using Any Video Converter. I used an older version of AVC in this video, so if you’re using a new version, a few things may be a little different but the process will be very similar.

FreeMake – Here’s another excellent, and free, video converter. Below is a video I made showing the settings needed to convert a video to be compatible with Explaindio. These settings are pretty common and can be used by many video editors.

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HandBrake – FREE – HandBrake is another good video converter that can handle virtually all popular video formats.

Convert To SVG

SVG is a “vector” image format. I won’t get into vector vs. bitmap/raster here, other than to say you may want to convert a common png or jpeg image into a svg image so that it can be “sketched” by a white board video making program.

Also, some vector images may come in AI of EPS format, both of these are Adobe Illustrator file formats. If you don’t have Adobe Illustrator, it can be expensive.

InkScape – FREE – InkScape is a free vector image editor available for WIN, Mac and Linux and can be used to modify svg images and convert png and jpeg to svg.

Remember that if you have any questions on how to do something, Youtube almost always has plenty of helpful videos. Here’s a link to Youtube search results for videos about InkScape convert png to svg.

Cheap Blue Ribbon Resources

VideoBlocks – $99 a year for unlimited royalty-free stock video downloads. You can use your downloaded media over and over, even after your membership expires. Yes, this is an affiliate link. But, VideoBlocks is something I’ve paid for myself for more than 3 years and will continue to in the future. In my opinion, VideoBlocks is an essential resource for any video marketing professional.

PresenterMedia – $49.95 for 1 year or $79.95 for a 2 year membership, using this special link only. Another paid resource that I’ve paid for myself. Unlimited downloads and you can use your media even after your membership is over. Presenter Media is primarily a PowerPoint media site. However, if you have PowerPoint, not only can you use the templates, videos and clipart directly, you can also export PowerPoint presentations as video files to use in other projects. Also, PresenterMedia has a variety of clipart and video backgrounds that you can customize online, then download to use in your own projects. This link is a “refer a friend” link. Use my link and you’ll save $10 off the regular subscription price and I’ll get an additional free month membership for my paid membership.

Check out the video below. I hope it will give you plenty of ideas of how you can use PresenterMedia and let some of you focus on marketing and making money, instead of trying to create pro quality videos:

Note: Only PowerPoint 2010 and up can export as video and only PowerPoint 2013 and 2016 can export as an MP4. PowerPoint 2013 has a free 30 day trial, so you can use it to customize PresenterMedia’s templates, then export as a video to use in other video creation tools.

AnimationFactory – $59.96-$99.95 per year, although they offer discounts for recurring members. I’ve paid for an AnimationFactory membership myself in the past. And although I let the membership lapse once in a while, it’s something I buy again and again. You will really need to get the more expensive “Platinum” membership level, as this offers larger animations needed for video as well as video backgrounds not available in the lower priced “Gold” membership. AnimationFactory is PresenterMedia’s “sister site”. While PresenterMedia focuses mostly on business related media, AnimationFactory offers animations with a much broader range.

Animated GIFs make creating good videos fast and easy. They add motion to your videos and help you tell all story. All you need to do is add a basic line of text and/or a video voice over. Access to animated GIFs is really a video maker’s secret weapon.

Again, PowerPoint can import and play animated gifs with transparent backgrounds, so you can play the animations over just about any background, add text and other media, then export as a video file to import into other video creation programs.

Note: Not all video editors work with animated gifs. And some of those that do, don’t read transparent backgrounds. PowerPoint and Explaindio both can use animated gifs. Camtasia can, but has issues with transparent gifs. Vegas Studio can handle animated gifs with transparent backgrounds. I’m sure there are other programs as well.

JewelBeat – JewelBeat has a big collection of high quality royalty-free music for just $2.99 a song. This is a great resource, especially when you need a license for a music clip you want to pass on to your clients. For just $2.99, you can be a real professional and do the right thing for you customers.

Blue Ribbon FREE Resources

Make “Videos” From Still Images with The Ken Burns Effect:

Windows Photo Story – FREE – This is an oldie but goodie free sideshow program from Microsoft. It really excels at creating the “Ken Burns Effect”. The Ken Burns Effect is adding a pan and zoom to a still image to give it movement. The human brain is conditioned to focus on movement and adding a little motion to a still image makes them more interesting for the viewer.Another advantage is, there’s lots more free still images available than free stock video, so your options greatly expand. A good strategy for video creation is to make a video that has a couple of scenes/slides that use video, a couple more that use static images, a couple of more that use images with the Ken Burns Effect, and a couple of more with just text. This lets you “stretch” your video content, while still creating interesting and effective videos.

Here’s a quick 4 minute video I made to show you how easy it is to make a video out of a still image using Photo Story 3 with the Ken Burns Effect:

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The actual video created is smoother than the example shown in the demo video due to Camtasia recording a video of a video.
Here’s a good video I found on Youtube that shows an “advanced”, but easy, technique using the Ken Burns Effect and Photo Story 3:

To repeat, it’s much easier to find free still images you can use in your videos than video clips. The Burns Effect is a simple and easy way to make still images used in your videos much more interesting.

Many other video programs can do the Ken Burns Effect using a pan and zoom feature. However, I find Photo Story 3 to be the easiest. For specific info for your video editor, just do a search on Youtube for something like “Ken Burns effect PowerPoint” or “pan and zoom using Camtasia”.

Note: Photo Story will save videos in the WMV format and the largest size is 1024×768. Generally speaking, you will want your videos in MP4 format and a size of 1280×720 for video programs such as Explaindio. Just use a video converter like Any Video Convert and change the size and file type. The converted video will be somewhat distorted, but for the vast majority of videos this won’t be noticeable.

Another Important Note: Use caution when using images that show the faces of real people. You could run into legal issues concerning “model release” contracts. Because of model release issues, I recommend using Kozzi. It’s a paid service with a free trial and all their models have signed releases. Better to be safe than sorry.

Kozzi – Has a FREE trial period and high quality images. Even after the free trial, it’s the most reasonable pricing of any of the paid image services. I suggest using it for any and all images of people showing their faces, as all Kozzi models have signed a release. I also really like their selection of cartoon backgrounds. Be sure to take advantage of their free trial.

Kozzi is kind of flaky in that they change their offers constantly, but try to use my referral link and see if you can still get $10 in free credits. Kozzi has excellent photos, graphics and stock video. I like paying for images (but not a lot). By paying a little, it gives me more confidence the images are OK copyright-wise. Also note that while the free sites may have images of models, you can’t be sure if the models have signed a release. Because of this, I suggest if you ever use a picture of a recognizable person, you make sure the model has signed a model release. All of Kozzi’s images have model releases.

Pixabay – The largest collection of public domain photos, images, clipart, etc. Can be used commercially and without attribution.

Note: Both OpenClipArt and Clker are good sources for vector SVG images, good to use in VideoScribe (affiliate link), Explaindio, Easy Sketch pro, etc. Cliker also has a free feature that will convert bitmap images to vector images.

All-Silhouettes – a great, free resource for graphics and it has a liberal usage license. Most of the collections of images have a svg version, but some come only with a AI version, at least the 10 or so collections I downloaded were that way. There are thousands and thousands of images you can use for free. Be sure to check the license on each individual collection, as some have different usage terms.

Here’s a very short 24 second video I made to show an few examples of All Silhouettes images:

Internet Archive of Public Domain Moving Images – Lots and lots of movies, films, cartoons and commercials in the public domain. Be sure to do your own due diligence, as not all resources listed here are in the public domain. Some are listed as Creative Commons and require attribution. But many classics such as Popeye and Betty Boop cartoons are in the public domain. Think about how you may be able to use them in your own projects.

Muvipix.com – This is a site created by, supporting and populated by people who love making videos.

Neo’s World – Lots of free resources, including video clips, effects and more, see Neo’s World. Neo focuses on free resources to use with Window Movie Maker, but virtually all of the stuff can be used with other programs.

MovieTools – Good selection of looping motion backgrounds. Be sure to read their license.

Dissolve.com offers a few free stock video clips every month, if you want to check them out. Their “regular” prices are $5 to $500 per video, so VideoBlocks at $99 a year for unlimited downloads is a much better deal IMO, but if you just need a video or two, or need footage for a client, you can check out Dissolve and see if they have what you need at a low enough price.

Bottled Video – “All 12,589 Broadcast Quality Stock Footage Video Clips are Free for you to Download and Use in your next video production. Again all video clips are Broadcast Quality and Totally Free.”

Free Music/Soundtracks for Your Videos

Sure, Youtube has tons more songs you can use in your videos, but that’s only if you upload the videos to Youtube first. What makes these songs good is that you can download them and use them on all of your projects, whether you upload them to Youtube or not.

AudioBlocks – This is a spin-off site from VideoBlocks and offers music and sound effects that used to be part of VideoBlocks, but was spun off into a separate site, needing an additional payment. They have a free 7 day trial, allowing up to 20 downloads per day. Be careful, they will bill you as soon as your 7 day trial is over, so be sure to cancel before then if you don’t want to continue. However, $99 for a full year of unlimited downloads is a pretty good deal if you need plenty of music. And you can use your music over and over and after your membership expires.

Audio Nautix – Here’s an excellent selection of music with the Creative Commons Attribution license.

JewelBeat Free – In addition to offering songs for just $2.99 each, JewelBeat also has a good selection of free music. However, the free songs require attribution and a link.

Incompetech – Incompetech also has a good selection of free, royalty-free music. And like JewelBeat’s free music, a link and attribution is required.

PublicDomain4u – “Great historical music recordings free to download, play and share.” Copyrights regarding music in the public domain are complicated. For example, a song may be public domain, the the recording of the song may be protected by copyrights. Be sure to use due diligence.

Public Domain Sound Effects

Adding sound effects can really add to your videos, especially if you aren’t using a voice over.

FreeSound.org is a site that has a lot of effects, music, anything related to sound. However, not everything is free to use without attribution or for commercial use.

If you do a special Google search, you can come up with tons and tons of free sounds that you can use in all your projects and don’t need to give attribution. The “Creative Commons 0” license is basically a public domain license.

This search query is pretty much keyword + site + license:

Just copy/paste the following into Google, replacing “keyword” with your own keywords:

keyword site:freesound.org “This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License.”

Misc. Media Resources

Some of these are listed above. I’ve posted them all together for your convenience here, as these are all free media sites offered by VideoBlocks.com. There’s some excellent stuff here, but there’s a very minor hassle that you need to sign up for each individually:

Online Custom Graphic Text and Logo Makers

While these are basically graphics programs, they can be used to spice up your videos as well. For example, use them to create headlines for your Powerpoint slides. Just don’t over-do it. Keep your style consistent by only using one logo style per video.

http://createfunnylogo.com/ – Makes logos in the style of popular brands like Google, Facebook, Coca-Cola, etc. I’m not sure about copyright/trademark issues with this, so use your own due dilligence. But I can say in the USA that parody is considered “fair use”.

http://magicmockups.com – A great free mockup generator with a very liberal usage license. Just upload an image and it creates the mockup for you.

How To Create A Great Looking Ebook Cover For Free

BoxShot is a free site that creates ebook covers, DVD boxes, CD boxes and more. These “covers” can be used in marketing videos, sales pages, email squeeze pages and more.

The video below shows how to make an ebook cover in under 6 minutes using Box Shot and free image resources.

Bonus Content: Save Time and Money with The Best Free Video Editors

These free video editors are as good or better than the “pay for” video editors that can cost $100s and even $1000s of dollars.

Tip: Virtually every major video editor (that isn’t promoted by Internet markets) has a free trial period. From Vegas Studio, to Powerpoint, to Adobe Premier and After Effects, you can use many programs for free to get started in your video making career.

Free Video Editor from VideoSoftDev – Of the free editors listed here, this one is probably the easiest to use. If you’re fairly new to video making and don’t want to spend any money, start here.

ActivePresenter – has a good free version video editor with screen capture. If you don’t have $300 to spend on Camtasia to record your screen, ActivePresenter is a great option. And did I say it’s free?

Bandicam – Bandicam seems to be another pretty good screen capture program, but I don’t think it has a built-in editor like ActivePresenter or Camtasia. The shareware version is free, but I think it has a watermark(?). You can get a license for $39.

Open Broadcaster Software – “Open Broadcaster Software is free and open source software for video recording and live streaming.” OBS is used by many gamers to record their game play onscreen, and can be used as a screen capture software similar to Camtasia.

Google Earth Pro – Google Earth Pro was $395 a year and is now free. GE Pro let’s you create videos out of the “tours” you create. Get creative. Use it to create video “directions” to local business or tours of interest.

Disregard that the URL above says “free trial”, you will be downloading the FULL version of Google Earth Pro.

After you download Google Earth Pro, enter this key:
GEPFREE

Wondershare Filmora – Filmora isn’t free, but it’s pretty cheap ($30 a year or $50 one-time), but does have a free trial that adds a watermark to your videos. I added it because it has a unique feature:

“Want to change the face of someone in a video? It’s a piece of cake with Wondershare Filmora (originally Wondershare Video Editor) (Filmroa for Mac(Originally Wondershare Video Editor for Mac)). This program includes a face-off feature that automatically tracks the position and rotation of the original head in your picture. All you need to do is choose your wanted portrait and apply it in a click. Then you can rest assured that it will be put over the face and fit for the size intelligently.”

Wochit – Wochit is an interesting online video creation service. It gives you access to lots of news-style media, such as video and images. It has both free and paid versions. The “catch” with the free version is you can only post the videos you create to their Wochit Youtube channel. However, you can then embed the videos on your own web pages or share on social media sites to get your message across. With a little creativity, this can be a powerful resource despite the limitations. Note: I didn’t check how much the paid version is.

CineGobs – With CineGobs keyer you can key out backgrounds and export the video including transparency to your other software.

Microsoft Cliplets Cinemagraph Maker – Cinemagraphs combine animmation and movement with a still image. For example, with Microsoft’s free Cliplets program you can take a video and make one part of it move while the rest of the video becomes static/still. You can so some really cool things with cinemagraphs and a bit of imagination.

The video below is my first attempt at a cinemagraph using Microsoft Cliplets. I used a video of flowers blowing in the wind and made them all still, except for the flower in the lower right hand corner. I’m sure you can do a lot better…but it should give you an idea of what a cinemagraph is.

Kurt is a great writer and online researcher on many topics. As we discuss in warrior on different subjects, he gave me this link. And as i read through his suggested link i am enlightened with the vast amount of information this article provides. This is really gem of an article which not only gives you opportunity to gain information but also increases scope to get better content as well.

Go to Amazon.com and from the category drop down menu select “Digital Music”, then enter this search:

royalty free

You can modify this some if you want:

royalty free blues
royalty free country
royalty free soundtrack
You can buy individual songs for 89 cents each and I’ve found albums with 50-100 songs for around $7-9. I’ve even come across a few free songs.

Gettty Images has plenty of videos you can use, especially if you need video of celebrities. However, they have a reputation for being very strict with their copyrights, so be sure you read their terms and follow them exactly.http://www.gettyimages.com/footage

Here’s a free online tool that creates “geometric” backgrounds. It has a number of options and these can be used for cartoon backgrounds, backgrounds for Youtube thumbnails, Facebook ad backgrounds, etc.